


Lean On Me

by d6dreams (staticfiction)



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Contemporary Romance, Alternate Universe - Sports, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Romance, Sports - Badminton, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, low angst, the one that got away
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-08 07:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19102957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticfiction/pseuds/d6dreams
Summary: Jae and Evie were friends. Or anyway, they were twelve years ago. They were kids when they met. Back when Evie was the badminton prodigy and Jae was the one trailing behind with his heart more set on everything else but the game. But, no. They never dated. Evie was not allowed to date, and Jae was content being just friends and sometimes mixed doubles partners.Now, Evie is back in town after her stint at the summer Olympics, still single and still on the move. Meanwhile, Jae has never left town, also still single and still very much attracted to her. But, no. It’s not like they can start dating, even if they both want to. Evie’s in town only until she opens up her studio and her sports program and then she’s off to the next big thing, and Jae has no plans of upping and leaving the home he’s worked so hard to build.They have two months at least, to see what could have been—what might have been—had they taken the leap. If closure is what they need, then closure is what they’ll get.





	1. Chapter 1

 

“You know Evie Kim, right?”

Jae Park had two different versions of his answer to the question depending on who was asking. Park Sungjin was his friend and bandmate—the latter distinction marking Sungjin as Essential, and thus invaluable and _ungetriddable_ —so Jae decided to forgive him. Besides, they’d been bandmates first before they were friends, so Sungjin couldn’t possibly have known what kind of rabbit hole they were getting into.

Because, yeah. As former regional badminton team qualifier, Jae knew Evie Kim. Even if they didn’t play together, mixed doubles or otherwise, they had trained under the same coaches in the same facility so their paths would have crossed at some point before she had qualified for the national team.

Even if he didn’t play badminton, as a sports enthusiast who followed the game, he’d recognize her because he’d hear all about her following the Korea Open, and the World Tour, and the Asian Games, winning gold medals all around and qualifying for the Summer Olympics where she’d made it to the quarterfinals.

Also, even if he cared shit about badminton or the olympics or whatever, he still lived around the city and had free access to the internet. He was just another one of the millions of people who had have passed by the standees of her for that clothing brand that made her look far more approachable, the posters of her face for the skincare line that made her look perfect and unattainable, and that one music video with that idolboy group that pushed her far out of everyone’s league while making her the desirable ideal.

“She plays badminton,” Sungjin continued, incredulous at the banality of his statement. “She was in the olympics. She used to live here, apparently.”

Jae knew that, too. Not just because it was easily Google-able information, but because Jae lived here too. Had lived here, in this city, for the past twelve years. On and off during the summers of the first half, and permanently for the second half.

Anyway, he should have listened to his gut when, upon meeting Sungjin for the first time, Jae had gotten the strange feeling he would live to regret the decision to _be_ in a band with him and three other guys. But Jae was a desperate guy, and so he said “Sure, I’ll join your band” just as easily as he said “Sure, I’ll take that last minute job to save your ass because your Not Girlfriend’s videographer guy suddenly couldn’t make it to this Important Event you’re not allowed to disclose details of until I get there, but I’ll go anyway so you can take all the credit and save the day like the superman you are. I hope you get laid soon, you’re welcome.”

Suddenly, the regret was a knotted ball of nerves in his gut. Jae should have realized it the moment he stepped into the fancy hotel’s fancy function room. Sungjin was an elementary school teacher, everything about this set up should have been suspect to begin with, but it was too late. So now Jae and his crew were setting up to document a small part of Evie Kim’s homecoming. They weren’t the home team, obviously. Someone of her status would have her own dedicated media and marketing team. What Jae was here for was the local unit. Small fish. From what Jae gathered, Sungjin’s second graders were meeting with her as part of her community activities. Here, in the fancy hotel’s fancy function room made to look like a child’s dream birthday party, complete with a bouncy house and cake with frosting to spare.

Behind him, Woosung, Hajoon, and Dowoon were already setting up, waiting on him to get his shit together because how obvious was it that he was about to lose his shit? These were not the circumstances he’d hoped to see her again. Not even close.

He’d hoped it would happen, of course. Though in his imagination he’d have been a bit more debonair, perhaps a bit more put together, with a more flattering haircut and a more flattering shirt. Just _more_. But, well, the universe had a sense of humour like that, he supposed.

So, yeah. Jae knew Evie Kim. What Sungjin and Jae’s crew didn’t know, what Google couldn’t have been able to tell anyone after a few keystrokes, was that he and Evie shared a history. From a certain point of view, they were friends. Twelve years ago, they met at a summer badminton camp in the mountains. He was a foreign kid who didn’t speak the language, and Evie was one of the rare few who could, and willingly chose to, converse with him in English. So they hung out and got to know each other. They were fifteen and she said she liked his sneakers, and he said he liked her braid, and then they practiced together and talked about random things in an attempt to teach him to speak like a local. Somewhere between all the artificially flavoured strawberry shakes they shared had been something good. It was slow and it was steady, and maybe they had been on to something but then they never really had the chance to find out.

Because then, The Dating Ban happened.

It wasn’t unheard of. Most of the kids who survived the camp went on to professional careers in their chosen events precisely because of the strict rules and training regimens they followed. Evie, among all others, was testament to that.

“Yeah, I know Evie,” Jae said.

“Okay, that’s good,” Sungjin said. “They’ll be out soon for the press event. You guys get ready and someone will come get you. You’ll probably need to sign a few stuff. The usual agreements and release forms.”

In his own way, Jae accepted the rules though he didn’t understand all of them, though he tried. Every kid in that camp had not been allowed to date for as long as they trained under the coaching staff and team. It had always been a rule, but Evie had told him once that she got the feeling it was implemented extra because they had been seen together everyday during all their breaks. Not that would have mattered. Even if anything had started—and nothing did—it wasn’t as though Evie could choose Jae over badminton. For one, he didn’t even live in the country then, and Evie had always been driven to win it all.

And she did. Win it all.

Well, as close as she could get to _It All_.

Not that Jae had fallen into obscurity. He could have been worse. He could have had absolutely nothing to show for and be forced to stand in her presence while she was beset with the vague memory of a boy from her past that maybe she remembered but mostly maybe not. Jae wasn’t even supposed to be here. But Jae was also known to have free time and who also happened to be good at this job. Granted, he mostly did sporting events and sometimes the odd wedding, but a shoot for the the local community blog wasn’t entirely off the table. Really, he’d take any job as long as he got paid.

Okay, so maybe he probably didn’t deserve to be in the same room as Evie Kim.

He looked down at his camera to tinker with the settings, giving his nervous hands something to do. His nose twitched, adjusting the ghost of his glasses that weren’t perched on his face. When he looked up, the kids were being filed in, lead by Sungjin from one side, and the important-looking people were walking toward them from the other.

And then she was there.

Evie Kim herself was standing off to the side, eyes on the kids, on the rainbowbouncy house, on the cake. On him. Jae forgot to breathe for a moment.

He wasn’t breathing at all when her face lit up when she recognized him and when she started walking to toward him.

“Jae H. Park!” She stopped right in front of him, her berry-coloured lips in a wide grin. She spread her arms, pausing enough to let him decipher and complete the unspoken question.

_Of course I’ll hug you._

Jae stepped forward, one arm swooping in around her and the other balancing his camera and putting a lock on his self-control. He never left anyone hanging, and he would never dare do that to her. They had hugged like this before. Once when they were eighteen and Evie was going to Nationals and he was going to university. At the time it had felt like the last time they would see each other. It wasn’t, but there was something poignant and melancholic about the way they had embraced.

It was like that now. Evie let out something like an excited giggle when she tightened her grasp around his neck, and he was taken totally off guard he barely managed to keep his steady when her feet had lifted off the floor for a split-second just to fully reach him.

Evie being so close brought it all back.

Her voice. Her laugh. The naughty twinkle in her eye.

She was still the most beautiful girl—woman he had ever seen.

The hug didn’t last long, and it was so over so quickly Jae suffered the whiplash of being reminded they weren’t the only people in the room. Someone was saying something to him, something about the thing Sungjin said they had to sign. Woosung was talking to him too, asking him about something. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been more important than Evie Kim.

Suddenly this job that he had just been having second thoughts about doing was now his most favorite job in the world. No problem. He could do this. He was a pro.

“You two know each other?” Some lady in a casual suit asked. Probably a manager. Or a bodyguard. Or both.

“Of course,” Evie said, beaming. She almost sounded affectionate, but he wasn’t sure. “Yes, I know him.”

If asked, she could give the same reasons as he did. Once upon a time, long ago and far away, they trained together. Just like how she would know most of her friends and acquaintances. That’s just how these things were. It was a smaller world than people thought, and badminton seemed to make it feel more suffocating. But it was an exclusive club the members all lived and vied for.

“I didn’t know you’re in the area,” Evie continued. Her hair was shorter now, cut in a bob that framed her face but other than that she looked almost exactly as he remembered her. “I would have called or something.”

Jae shrugged, hoping no one would notice the effort he put into making it seem casual and noncommittal. Did she really mean that? They had not spoken, in every sense of the word, in almost six years. “You’re a superstar. Wouldn’t have expected you to.”

Not that he expected her to. Not that he thought she meant it. True, someone like her would have nearly unlimited resources at her disposal to find him if she were so to please. She could have done that, maybe. She’d done it before, messaged him out of the blue to “check in on him” when they’d be oceans apart. At first, he had kept up with the exchange. He had liked talking to her. Everything was easy with Evie. Not once did feel awkward or strange as he often felt around everyone else. But life went on, and Evie won more gold medals and Jae had a shit-ton of homework to do, and the messages came fewer and further apart. And then, as these thing naturally went, they had dropped out of each other’s lives.

Easy enough following her career, but he doubted she followed his activities. Why would she? She’d have been too busy at the top.

The corner of her mouth turned up, playful and coy. “Oh, come on. Is that really what you’re gonna say to me? That’s it? After all these years? I missed you!”

There was a beat of silence while he took that in.

His jaw may have dropped.

Same for his crew. And her manager/bodyguard/whatever.

She missed him.

Evie Kim missed him.

Him, Jae Park.

He cleared his throat of the cotton and the thorns that stuck there from out of nowhere. His fingers twitched and he was probably sweating through his socks and his sneakers. What the hell did he say to that?

“Say Evie, I missed you too.”

Shit.

Did he say that out loud?

“Yes,” Evie laughed. “Yes, you did.”

His mouth went dry. He was probably gaping at her like an idiot. Surely, his friends were laughing at him now and Evie’s manager was mentally crossing him off all the lists and making a mental note to put a restraining order against him.

“Well?” Evie prompted, smiling at that. “I’m waiting.”

“Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah, of course. Evie, I—”

How was he supposed to even say the words? He did miss her. Terribly. He missed her so bad, he didn’t even know that was possible. Sure, he didn’t miss her that much on the regular. On any other day, the mention of her brought a little sad twinge in his chest but that was it. At most. Right now, his chest felt like someone smashed a shuttlecock right through his ribcage. Jae ached.

Somehow, he miraculously managed to shake himself out of his stupor. Enough to think the words and thensay the words out loud. Intentionally, this time.

“I missed you, Evie.”

Of course, he missed her.

She smiled at that again, grinning at him with her berry-coloured lips and her cat-like eyes. There was something about her now that was different. Jae couldn’t place what it was, but it didn’t matter because he _liked_ it. Even after all these years, she still affected him the same way.

“How exactly do you know each other?” her manager/bodyguard/whatever asked, eyeing them curiously, Jae felt like an insect under a magnifying glass.

Evie laughed, bright and innocent. “If there’s one regret in my life, it’s him. He’s the one that got away.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

When Evie made it all the way to the Olympic quarterfinals, she’d done it after she had made a list and said it out loud, and trained as much as she could get away with at the expense of everyone calling her prickly and difficult.

She did not give a fuck for she had no more fucks left to give.

After twelve years of her life being called overrated—and her being apologetic for it—she finally decided to go ahead and claim it and give them something to really talk about. Subtlety was thrown out the window. Gone was the soft and cute image, and anyone who found her threatening could go fuck themselves. Anyway, it paid off because all that hard work and all that hype got her more gold medals and more representation. And, sure, more enemies. Anyway, she wasn’t competing to make lifelong friends on and off the court no matter what all the sports anime told her. Evie competed to win. The more the odds seemed stacked against her, the more determined she was to overcome them.

To those to bothered to give her more than a passing glance, her reputation shifted toward her work ethic. As a child, she had been called a prodigy. The skill and the instinct came naturally to her and she didn’t have to _try_ , but the thing about child prodigies was that they grew up and the things that made them special didn’t seem so special anymore after a certain age. When the realisation hit, Evie tried four times when she was only asked to try thrice. Raw talent could only do so much. Drive. Determination. Those were what won her things. And she became loud about it, too.

_Yes, I worked hard to win this._

_Yes, I deserve this._

Words have power. Whether it was self-fulfilling or there was an actual omnipotent being out there looking for her, saying the words seemed to work for her.

And then, just now, she had said the words she had wondered if she would ever say out loud.

In the end, they were still just words after all. Words, in that specific order, that she had carried with her all these years and everywhere she went because she did that, apparently. She held on to things—goals, promises, and yes grudges—and never let them go until she could cross them off her list. This was her life: a long checklist of one thing after another, accomplishing one thing and then moving on to the next thing without dwelling on the last.

When she saw Jae Park standing there, she didn’t know exactly how to feel. Difficult not to recognize him even after all these years. He looked the same, though not quite exactly the same. He had more mass to him now, definitely filled in where he was all bones and angles before. Lanky, still. Joints all loose at the hinges like he didn’t really put that much effort to keeping upright. The rumpled, just woken up look worked for him in ways it was obvious he did not realize how appealing the entire aesthetic was.

Anyway, yeah.

 _The one that got away_.

That’s what she called him. After she hugged him. Hoped that she wasn’t blushing all over because that little smile he gave her? It was exactly the secret smile they had shared when they were across the court from each other and were playing mixed doubles against each other. The one she’d look away from at the last minute, trying not to grin ear to ear.

He never went easy on her and she never let him win.

But to be fair, she’d always leave the game out of breath because of him. Whether it was because of the game or because of Jae himself, she never really knew. It didn’t matter, anyway. Nothing came of it.

“Same,” he said with a little shrug. It was that same insouciant shrug he always did.

Evie hoped she wasn’t blushing as she smiled at him. Next to her, Hyojin her manager, blinked at her. At them. Hyojin’s jaw dropped. Evie’s might have, too. She’d said it because, what the hell, it sounded casual enough. Cute, even. It wasn’t like Hyojin didn’t know about him. Vaguely, maybe. Evie might have mentioned Jae one or twice. So she said the words and she expected him to laugh. But, no.

He said she was the one that got away.

Sort of. Kind of. Ish.

He could have said literally anything else. After all, it’s not like he kept in touch to hint at him being interested in her still. He wasn’t now, probably. Interested.

Was he?

“Uh, I mean, hey!” Jae jerked his head as if to shake away the weirdness of the situation. “Wow. Hi. It’s you.”

“It’s me. Evie.” Of course he knew who she was. He’d said so, hadn’t he? He said he missed her. Did he just say that because she made him?

“Hi, Evie.” He gulped. Blinked. “Hi. Hello.”

“Yeah. Hi, Jae.”

“What’s up?”

Evie couldn’t figure out if he wanted to throw himself out the hall or bash his head in with his camera with the way his eyes rolled over and the way he winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

Same.

“I’m here.” She shrugged and gestured at the banner announcing her presence. It was cheesy, kind of tacky, but it was local and homey. It was sweet.

“So, uh, long time,” he said, blinking. His nose still twitched. Some habits died hard, she guessed.

“Yeah,” she answered. “Long time. Really long time.”

“Yes. Really long time. Long, long time. Very much a long time since last you were here and last we saw each other. Really long time. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. You’re…yeah. All that time, right? You’re…you. Like, wow.”

“Thanks. So…I guess…” she nodded at his camera. “You’re the…”

“Yes!” He lifted his camera. “Yes. This is a camera.” A beat. Probably to beat himself mentally over that. “I mean. You know what a camera is, obviously. I mean yeah. I’m here with the camera. Kinda like an income-generating hobby thing. Like, it was a last-minute gig. I didn’t even know you were here. Like, no idea at all.”

Evie nodded, trying not to cringe. “Yeah, you know how these things are.”

“Yeah, of course. Wow,” he chuckled. Kind of. He cleared his throat again. “Yeah. And now it’s you. You’re here. You’re back in town. Ish? This is great.”

“For a bit, yeah.”

“This is amazing.” He didn’t sound amazed. He sounded…pained. Awkward all of a sudden when just moments before he’d been receptive and warm. The smile plastered on his face didn’t feel forced, but it did feel wobbly. As he spoke, his voice rose in pitch. “Yeah, this is amazing.”

“It is. Amazing.” Her smile wobbled, too.

“Congratulations, by the way.” Jae cleared his throat. “For all the things. Yeah. That. Great drop shots, as usual.”

 _Great drop shots_?

Seriously?

“Thanks?” To be fair, her drop shots did see a vast improvement from when they were in junior camp. He remembered that? That was…unexpected. He noticed? That was…that made her feel things. “You, uh, noticed.”

His hand came up to scratch his ear. “I mean, yeah. I did. I mean, you know. On TV. And, like, YouTube and stuff. Not that I saw, like, on purpose. I mean, I was looking at it. I was watching it. Not like I just fell on my face and then the video started playing. I mean, you know. You’re everywhere. Wow. It’s just…yeah. I mean…You’re here.”

Hyojin choked on a laugh. “Evie, we need to go over the questions and the script one last time. And hair. Makeup.”

That made her sound so…superficial. No matter how matter of fact the backstage process was. Sometimes it made her feel less of an athlete and more of something else. Something she wasn’t quite sure how to accommodate in her life just yet. Evie searched Jae’s face for any sign that he was thinking the same, but he just shrugged at her again, turning slightly away to hide the color on his cheeks.

That was a win, wasn’t it?

She gestured at Hyojin and at the crew waiting behind them. “I need to, uh.”

Jae shook his head. Nodded. “No. Yeah. I mean. Sure, go do your thing. I, uh, I gotta get to work. We both should probably get to work. Right? Yeah…”

Evie gesticulated wildly with her hands, not knowing how to exit from his increasingly awkward conversation that seemed to have no upper limit. “I’ll see you around, I guess?”

Jae exhaled with a puff of his cheeks. “Of course. I mean, you’re obviously gonna be busy, but like…”

Evie stepped back, Hyojin at her elbow. “Yeah, we should though.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Someone send help.

 

~ o ~

 

Evie blinked and then there was someone fixing her hair and retouching her makeup.

The thing she was supposed to be doing now was talk to a bunch of second graders about herself. It was one of the homecoming events she was scheduled to do for the duration of the time she was spending here. Here, here. It was a small enough town, still technically in the city proper but far away enough to have some semblance of peace away from the toxicity of the metropolitan area. It was a good town, though sometimes she can’t help but view it in a shitty light. Then again, she remembered most of her childhood like that.

Evie grew up here. Her parents’ house was a couple of blocks away from this hotel, a surprising addition she didn’t remember being here last time she visited. That was what? Six years ago? Just before she started training for the olympics.

About the same time she lost touch with Jae.

So he was a photographer now? Videographer? He was shuffling around with his camera, giving instructions to his team, and going around the hall finalising a shot list. As she played with the kids around the bouncy house, Jae followed her around, too. He kept a good distance between her, and the camera crew her people hired, but Evie could feel him as though he were closer. She felt his eyes on her. Granted, he was behind the camera and was looking at her as a matter of course. As a professional.

During the interview, she was directed to sit down on a pink cushy block while the kids sat cross-legged on the floor. At least she wore something casual today, jeans and her official collared shirt promoting national pride. She’d had felt too constricted in one of those skirt suits or a fancy dress—not that she hated them.

It was Jae, really.

The way he looked at her with open admiration.

“My name is Evie,” she said to the kids, “I was part of the national badminton team for ten years. I won gold medals and then I went to the Olympics.”

“I watched your videos,” said one of the girls in the front row. “Daddy says you’re not playing anymore.”

“I’m still playing,” she said, calmly. Cutely, even. These were kids. They weren’t here to throw stealth insults at her.

But yes. Was part of the national team. Past tense now because she was officially retired. She retired two years ago, a year after the Olympics. Not because she didn’t win gold, though that was the news that circulated.

What the fuck, right?

Anyway, she was turning twenty-eight years old and her prime reproductive years were coming to an end. Her life had zoomed past her and what did she have to show for besides medals and trophies? Also, she wasn’t getting any younger and sometimes it was just time. Sometimes, some things were just not meant to be no matter how hard you worked on it. But that didn’t mean you stopped working on it. In other ways, if you have to. Besides, she wasn’t really _done_ with badminton anyway. There was so much to do. Which brought her back to why she was here. Why she had been adamant to get her management to plan a full stop of activities in her hometown.

People would always have an opinion on her life, as an athlete, as a person, as a woman. She gave up on trying to make them understand. They had their minds made up and Evie had better things to do.

Just because she didn’t win didn’t mean it had to stop there. “I’m building a badminton school here,” Evie said. To make sure the other kids had everything they needed. To make sure all the talent can be found and nurtured. “Do any of you play?”

A few hands went up. Discreetly, she glanced at Jae. Wondered if he still played. Because she remembered. Jae was good. Better if he put his mind to it, her coach had once said. That was the prelude to the conversation that changed everything. Suddenly she was not allowed to see Jae anymore. _He’s a distraction_ , she had been told. _That boy will only drag you down_.

She remembered how angry she felt. But because she also wanted to prove her dreams were bigger than that, she had accepted it. Evie Kim would not be distracted by a Cute Boy.

And then she proved it.

And then…and then what?

After a few more questions, the kind that made her laugh and remember what it was like to not have to think like someone was trying to extract information they could misconstrue, she passed her medals around for the kids to see. She was proud of every one of them.

When she turned to Jae again, he was watching her. Not through his camera but just above it. He was standing there, camera halfway to his face, smiling at her. A carefree, open smile like he had been part of her journey, too. Like he was proud of her.

Seriously, she didn’t need _this._

She didn’t need this _now_.

It had been a crush, one she should have been gotten over by now.

But, yeah. The same little old crush that was coming back with a vengeance.

Maybe not so little.

 


End file.
